As you may know, Richard Rodriguez has been a controversial figure. Based on your reading of the first half of Hunger of Memory, would you characterize him as revolutionary, or reactionary? Please quote from at least one passage and explain how it supports your argument. I'd like you to post at least twice by noon on Jan. 31, preferably on two different days, and to refer to another post at least once.
Richard Rodriguez seems to me more of a reactionary than a revolutionary. As a child he assimilated into American culture and tried to ‘get out’ of his lifestyle as a middle class immigrant. He looked down on his parents for being uneducated and took refuge in education. He opposes bilingual education because “they propose bilingual schooling as a way of helping students acquire the skills of the classroom crucial for public success. But they likewise insist that bilingual instruction will give students a sense of their identity apart from public.” I think that having it both ways is definitely important and that it is not as extreme as Richard puts it. Children of different backgrounds do need to keep their native language because it is a great part of who they are, and this does not necessarily isolate them. Being able to move freely in public is more of a personal thing, which varies from one person to another. I think that bilingual education does not necessarily isolate children; on the contrary it enriches their education and does not limit them. Nevertheless it is important to have a strong English education for those children so that they can feel more comfortable in public as well. Personally, when I first came to the US I didn’t know much English and at school I was first put in ESOL, a program where they help children with their English classes until they learn English to a level where they can speak and write like native English speakers. Even though I became a fluent English speaker I never lost my native tong and I always spoke Spanish at home and my English level at first was never an impediment for me to move confidently among English speakers. Therefore, Richard Rodriguez speaks from his own personal experience, which is not necessarily the experience of every other foreigner who comes into the US.
I feel that Richard Rodriguez is a little bit of both. I find him to be revolutionary because he is a person that grew up in America his whole life and was an American student and proud to be one. His home life was where he got his foreign cultures and he was able to recognize and separate the two. I think it is interesting how he shows the progression of his home into one that turns more and more American. It is different how although his extended family was particularly strong in their Mexican culture, his parents felt the need for his American culture to be the one to be of the most priority and growth. They were able to see the value that American education could have once he was in the real world workforce.
The fact that one thing that he was able to connect between both cultures was his religion was also interesting to me. Being that his religion was also included in his public education was cool because it gave him a way to tie his home and education together. His teachers and his parents then were finally on a level together where they were both able to help guide him. The religion aspect probably made a huge impact in his life and the transitions he went through as his family and home became more and more American and as they spoke more and more English.
I find Richard Rodriguez to be revolutionary in the sense that he is probably the first person from a "minority" here in the U.S. that I've actually heard promote assimilation into the culture. But let's also not ignore the fact that his reactionary experiences are what led him to the path of revolutionary thinking.
When I think about it, I agree: there are a lot of double standards, like when it comes to wanting to feel part of the mainstream, but then also wanting to maintain your own identity. I really like the fact that he broke down these experiences into the public vs. personal aspect.
Just like Kristen, I too found religion to stick out as a big influence in shaping him as a person. So far, I have found a consistent pattern, where something in his situation changes, a change he's not ready for, and in turn he becomes a bit jaded. He says on the top of page 53, when speaking about how as a second grader, he used English against his parents, as a form of punishment for their "betrayal":
The enthusiasm I felt in second grade classes I flaunted before both my parents... I intended to hurt my mother and father. I was still angry at them for having encouraged me toward classroom English.
So basically, I find Rodriguez's manner of thinking to be revolutionary because of the different approach he takes to describing and analyzing his experiences.
It shouldn't be hard to figure out a revolutionary from a reactionary. The reason why it is hard is because it is a subjective idea. To whom is Richard Rodriguez revolutionary? To academics maybe ? To "those in White America who would annoint me ..." ?(Rodriguez3) To whom is he reactionary? To me!
Whenever someone comes up with a new point of view it is considered by some revolutionary. However, I take revolutionary to mean that someone wanted to see and strived for a change in a community. For example: Rodriguez spoke against affirmative action and bilingual education not because of some pull for a "righting of a wrong" but for practical reasons. He does not wish to delay assimilation. As shown on page 26, "But the bilingualists simplistically scorn the value and necessity of assimilation".
Rodriguez is reacting to his own upbringing and sense of identity. He transfered from a intimate quiet world of spanish sounds to a world full of confidence and no longer feeling alienated from the "gringos". He really couldn't feel American without learning English. However if Spanish was taught in school it would just be another language and not hold this intimate longing it once had.
I am not saying that someone who speaks from experience cannot be revolutionary. They can be in their own right. However, I feel that a revolutionary ought to be able to look past his own experience and place the universal truths in the public light ( which Rodriguez does to some extent when he talks less of "Grandma" and more on real politics).
I would definitely agree with Sara because Richard is not taking into account other people’s experiences other than his to react and act against bilingual education. He reacts to his own experience and tries to discredit bilingual education. According to him “bilingual educators say that children lose a degree of ‘individuality’ by becoming assimilated into public society” (26). What I think is that individuality does not have much to do with language. If one person learns to speak English and feels comfortable in a society, that person has the “public individuality” according to me. To my understanding, what Richard is trying to say is that one only acquires ‘public individuality’ when assimilating to a culture and becoming part of ‘the mass.’ On the other hand, a person’s native language is a key part of that person’s individuality and what Richard is implying is that one cannot keep this individuality (native roots and language) and still feel comfortable in American society. I definitely feel that this is false and I feel that it is a lack of personality to think that you have to loose part of who you are to be able to fit in a society. Both things can certainly be accomplished.
Caliban lived in an island by himself and he tried to rape Miranda so that he could have calibans on the island. I think he ends up ruling the island for some time but then he goes back to obeying Prospero. I think that when Richard says that he has "taken Caliban's advice. [he] has stolen their books. [he] will have some run of this isle" he means that he takes a chance in a foreign place and tries to make it his somehow. He has taken their english books, read them all and he has become part of the culture.
Well I am actually a bit confused, see because first everyone is saying that we can't generalize and assume one person's experience counts for the rest, but then you're asking that he take into account everyone else's experiences so that he may come use those experiences to help sum up his experiences, if I understand correctly?
I do agree that we all come from different cultures and backgrounds, and it is important to maintain some sort of sense of our own identities as opposed to always trying to count ourselves with the whole. But what I think you guys are misinterpreting is the fact that Rodriguez chose to take the route of full assimilation. Okay, so maybe some things like having to speak English in school weren't optional, but that didn't mean that his parents couldn't have come up with a better plan to practice English at home than just dropping the language from their vocabulary altogether. However the fact remains that's what happened, and so as a result the person he's become and the particular views he maintains are in reaction to that.
I do not think he is saying that in order to assimilate and feel comfortable in American society, one must forfeit any or all other cultural identities. Instead he makes the point of showing what major elements make up the American cultural identity, and then further elaborates on how he chose to wholly make it his identity, (instead of going half and half like so many others prefer). Like I said before, his way of thinking stemmed from his reactionary experiences. And although some disagree, I still see his way of thinking to be revolutionary. Granted, he may not have been trying to change the world or anything by sharing his experiences, however just by sharing such controversial views, he's indirectly lighting a fire in that direction, making all of us really consider how our experiences and beliefs compare or differ, and what or if we're going to do something about it.
I really like what Tiffany just had to say. I see that people often say that you can't assume one group to all confine to certain ideas and stereotypes, but I also think that these things should be looked at and considered for the individuals. Single experiences are special because they are individual, but sometimes there are special qualities and common threads within different cultural backgrounds that need to be looked at as well.
I like how Rodriguez chose to assimilate and chose to take in as much American culture as he could in order to expand his identity to include "American." But at the same time, he was disturbed by the fact that growing in identity in one area can affect other areas. By losing some of the Spanish in his home, his life was affected, but he did not lose that culture all together. His cultural identity simply changed and grew into a different direction.
I see him as revolutionary because he has brought up the idea of being of a different background and assimilating, although not creating the idea, he has truly brought more attention to the thought. It is interesting to see a more diverse point of view on a subject that is talked about so much.
I think we are misunderstanding something. There is nothing WRONG with being reactionary...Yes, it is important to not discount that everyone has their own experience. However there are universal truths that come out of everyone's experience.
I used to call my father "Papi" up til about first grade. The only person that spoke Haitian Creole with me was my grandmother. Then around fourth grade my father changed his mind and decided that he woud only talk to me in french. My mother spoke English with me and I assimilated so much that I never answered my Father back in french because my skill in english had surpassed my skill in the other languages. There were things I could express in English that I couldn't express in the other languages. I went to a bilingual elementary school so I can understand when he says that it being taught makes it just another language and not approached with the same amount of excitement and intimacy as it had before.
I am not saying that Rodriguez needs other people's experiences to sum up his own. In fact, the greatest speakers and reactionaries are those who speak from their own experience. They are provocative and in their audience may be a revolutionary to push forth their ideas without having the same experience so long as he recognized universal truth.
I think he is definitely a reactionary. Feel free to correct my definition, but I feel like a reactionary is someone who reacts to a change that will, he thinks, make things worse and works to block it. He is against bilingual education and against affirmative action, two things that would change permanently the American education system. He does not subscribe to progressive ideals about schooling. He even, gently, puts them down in the book when he mentions that, in contrast to more "progressive" takes on education, most of the learning done in schools must be of information already uncovered. He is reacting to a perceived change in order to preserve the older way of things.
His take on assimilation, that is that it will not necessarily destroy you as a person though it will change you, is certainly different than the trend among speech on the subject recently, it is not a new idea nor is it an especially earth-shattering return of an ancient and forgotten idea. Immigrant groups to the US for the past two centuries (German, Irish, Italian, admittedly the whiter of the immigrant groups) have touted the merits, among themselves and their families if not as much in scholarly work, of assimilation, the idea that resisting assimilation is healthy and should be promoted is in fact very new. It is not revolutionary, it is a reaction to a current trend in order to preserve an older, apparently superior idea. It is a reactionary idea.
As I read Richard Rodriguez’s autobiography I felt that he was certainly a reactionary rather than a revolutionary. Richard along with his family reacted to a feeling of “otherness” by assimilating into mainstream American society and putting their own culture and language as a second language and culture. I feel that the most obvious example is in Rodriguez’s name. Rodriguez’s states, “The social and political advantages I enjoy as a man result from the day that I came to believe that my name, indeed, is Richeard Road-ree-guess.” As a result of wanting to be more “American” and not wanting to be an outsider Rodriguez allowed his name to be Americanized and felt that he really was this American “Richeard Road-ree-guess” instead of Ricardo Rodriguez.
It seems to me that when Rodriguez speaks of assimilation he feels the sense that you have to put your culture aside. I do feel that it is important to become part of the culture in which you are living in but it is of great importance to never forget your roots, our roots make us who we are. Much like Valentina I came to this country from a native Spanish speaking country. As a child I felt the need to fit in with the rest of the American children and speak the language and follow the American customs. As time went on and I was able to learn the language I was able to make friends and live an “American lifestyle.” This however did not change the fact that at home we spoke Spanish, I read Spanish books and I identified with others whose native tongue was Spanish
Revolutionary VS. Reactionary. Revolutionary can be defined as introducing a change or impact on society whereas Reactionary opposes this change and essentially wants to preserve the current state. I would place Richard Rodriguez as a Revolutionary individual because of his fight against Affirmative Action and Bilingual Education. Before classifying him, we need to understand his reason for going against these government programs. Using the Bilingual Education as an example, by allowing students to focus on English in a society (USA) where it is prevalent and fundamental to grow, they would be able to utilize its benefit and succeed just as Richard had in his case. Bilingual Education would only deter his success and the success of future students. Limiting the potential of the students would confine them to a fragile future but it is Richard that sees the devastation that would be brought about with these programs.
"I never forgot that schooling had irretrievably changed my family's life. That knowledge, however, did not weaken ambition. Instead, it strengthened resolve. Those times I remembered the loss of my past with regret, I quickly reminded myself of all the things my teachers could give me. (They could make me an educated man)" (Pg. 53). Richard realizes the ultimate consequence of focusing in school. By gaining an education, he inevitably loses his family during the process. He accepts it because it was his choice to pursue his education and his parents' desire for him to succeed that anchored him.
Similar to Sarah's experience, my assimilation to the American culture and pursuit of an education has also deteriorated my native language. I remember how I used to speak Chinese at home all the time without a problem. It was the only language that was present in my household but when I started to go to school, the English language became an important part of my life. Now, I struggle to talk to my parents in Chinese and substitute many words with English. I find it strange that Richard's situation reflects so much of what I have experienced. The way I have also become distant with my family as well as my struggle with speaking Chinese now. But in the end, "the loss implies the gain" (Pg. 27).
Caliban lived in an island by himself and he tried to rape Miranda so that he could have calibans on the island. I think he ends up ruling the island for some time but then he goes back to obeying Prospero. I think that when Richard says that he has "taken Caliban's advice. [he] has stolen their books. [he] will have some run of this isle" he means that he takes a chance in a foreign place and tries to make it his somehow. He has taken their english books, read them all and he has become part of the culture.
Adding on to Valentina's explanation:
Caliban is a character in Shakespeare's "The Tempest" and I think using Shakespeare as a Western reference in the beginning line confirms to himself and to us that he is an educated man in America. In a way, Richard Rodriguez relates to Caliban because both are "different" in their society where Caliban is a deformed monster and Richard is a foreigner and in the Shakespeare play, Caliban tries to raise a revolt against his master Prospero (authority) as does Richard against the government.
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